Your favourite expansion, story-wise

[letssee]

cmon, what kind of question is this, its WOTLK no discussion.

[Zafire]

I didn't really like MoP because it didn't have any real significance. You could omit mostly everything that happened on Pandaria and it wouldn't change anything about the warcraft universe at all. Questing was the most boring I've experienced in any expansion to date. It was mostly entirely side stories with nothing related to the Sha at all. Again, lack of long term significance.

It was definitely WotLK for me. The questing was absolutely fantastic. Dragonblight got me to play Warcraft 3, so I really appreciated the flashback stories here. The quest that sends you against Undercity as an Alliance player was exciting for me. The cutscene where the Forsaken use the blight was one of the most significant FMV's in WoW history for me. That's just Dragonblight. I even liked the first 30% or so of Borean Tundra, as it showed how much people were struggling.

My next favorite zone was definitely Icecrown. It's still my favorite zone in the game. Ominous music, requires a flight mount, a few factions accessible here, most of the quests are scourge related, and it really builds you up to raid ICC. I like how you get the feeling you're slowly helping the factions there take the zone away from the Lich King.

My favorite zone to quest in though was definitely Zul'Drak. That long quest chain where you play as a ghoul was fun for me and I was excited to see what happened next. Think it was one of the few quest chains I was excited to read everything.

For story, by FAR WoTLK. I haven't been invested in the lore since.

[wombinator04]

How could anyone vote for Legion? Suramar was the only lore Legion got right.

WOTLK. Zone lore was fantastic, dungeon lore was fantastic.......it was all just fantastic with the culmination of the Warcraft story(Arthas).

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Haha MoP so high xD I would to bring that pool back in time when ppl complain about MoP and pandarens xD

For me Wotlk was best aftert that i could point on BC, Classic and Legion (the order is random)

Ikr, people were so critical of MoP's story/lore back when it was current. Yeah there were the people who liked it, I know, I was one of them. But A LOT of haters persisted until WoD.

[Itori]

WOTLK was the ending of my favorite wc3 character, i loved his story, and still wish he was around even now as a 3rd faction because it was just so fun to play the DK starting area and feel like true evil. Also the norse theme and zones with their quests are my favorite.

Vanilla = its alright
TBC = pretty good
Wotlk = genius
Cata = we dont speak of you
MoP = meh s'alright
WoD = alternate time line, wut?
Legion = this is pretty cool
Bfa = anduin my dude you need to get laid

[Skyforge1]

For myself

Wrath > MoP > Cata > BFA > BC > Vanilla > Legion > WoD

[LuminaL]

Except his "grand plan" makes little sense. If he had just killed you and raised you from the get go, he'd have you and the rest of his minions like KT and Anub.
He "lets" you keep growing and advancing to become the best fighting force in the world, but whats the point? If he or his minions had killed you before you became that paragon of power, he'd still have had the strongest force (and he himself was still stronger than us anyways). It was circuitous and clearly a ploy to explain why he just kept letting us go.

I mean yes that one time if you stray too close to him in Howling fjord and of course when he decides to wipe the raid in ICC, but I still think it takes away from him being a looming threat when just shows up to say a few lines and then walks off again. If he maybe killed off important characters, wiped out a village, raised a powerful monster we had to fight or well anything really, I'd have been more impressed with how they handled him. Of course at the age of 17 I didn't really care much about anything but raiding so I did not think too much about it when I played through the content back then. But reflecting on it, I think they could've handled the Lich King better.

and we also run away from LK in the dungeon after pits of saron ( dont remember the name, halls of something xD ). I think you can count it as a failed attempt to kill.

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I didn't really like MoP because it didn't have any real significance. You could omit mostly everything that happened on Pandaria and it wouldn't change anything about the warcraft universe at all. Questing was the most boring I've experienced in any expansion to date. It was mostly entirely side stories with nothing related to the Sha at all. Again, lack of long term significance.

we had two whole expansions WoD and Legion because of events of Pandaria, besides in MoP horde lost its warchiefe( not that its something new) Alliance lost theramor, anduin got his holy light powers and Cairn died.

[Velshin]

In term of storyline and lore here we goes:

1-Legion
2-MoP
3-Wotlk
4-BfA (not done yet so I will give my full judgement after the expansion is over obviously).
5-Cata
6-WoD
7-TBC

The funny thing is TBC is my favorite expansion overall but even I can't deny how distaster the story was and how they killed one of my favorite lore characters in Warcraft history...Kael'thas Sunstrider...and how they admit it during the launching of TBC that they purely added Illidan in the expansion so the players kick his butt and feel bad ass....

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WOTLK was the ending of my favorite wc3 character, i loved his story, and still wish he was around even now as a 3rd faction because it was just so fun to play the DK starting area and feel like true evil. Also the norse theme and zones with their quests are my favorite.

Vanilla = its alright
TBC = pretty good
Wotlk = genius
Cata = we dont speak of you
MoP = meh s'alright
WoD = alternate time line, wut?
Legion = this is pretty cool
Bfa = anduin my dude you need to get laid

I am just curious what is so good about TBC lore and story? really? some people confuse with the "what is your favorite expansion ever" and what is your favorite in term of story? really the story of TBC is all over the place?

[Queen of Hamsters]

MoP on first place, Legion on second.

[Syce]

Wrath in my opinion. loved the whole story of Arthas and such.

[Itori]

In term of storyline and lore here we goes:

1-Legion
2-MoP
3-Wotlk
4-BfA (not done yet so I will give my full judgement after the expansion is over obviously).
5-Cata
6-WoD
7-TBC

The funny thing is TBC is my favorite expansion overall but even I can't deny how distaster the story was and how they killed one of my favorite lore characters in Warcraft history...Kael'thas Sunstrider...and how they admit it during the launching of TBC that they purely added Illidan in the expansion so the players kick his butt and feel bad ass....

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I am just curious what is so good about TBC lore and story? really? some people confuse with the "what is your favorite expansion ever" and what is your favorite in term of story? really the story of TBC is all over the place?

It was due to the hype of the burning legion returning, and venturing into the broken world of draenor, and emphasized on the light vs demons aspect, and then finished off with taking down illidan and the sunwell story.

[RoKPaNda]

MoP > Legion > Cata > WoD > BC > Vanilla > Wrath.

MoP just had a good story if you ignore the fact that the pandas were constantly bitching at us about our wars while having us fight their enemies. Legion / Cata / WoD all had decentish stories. BC had a horrible nonsensical story, Vanilla didn't really have any sort of consistent story, and Wrath can be boiled down to "Hey remember that character that was a pawn in WarCraft 3 all those years ago? Yeah he killed his boss offscreen and he's the big bad now." - Blizzard stories aren't very good tbh.

[Zafire]

we had two whole expansions WoD and Legion because of events of Pandaria, besides in MoP horde lost its warchiefe( not that its something new) Alliance lost theramor, anduin got his holy light powers and Cairn died.

You proved my point though. Two of the most interesting things that happened in the expansion didn't even happen in Pandaria. You could almost omit the expansion zones entirely. Wasn't Theramor a pre-expansion event, too?

[The Stormbringer]

1.) Wrath
2.) MoP
3.) TBC or Legion

[McNeil]

I'll rate them in short:

Classic - There's not really much of an overarching storyline, but it does have a lot of good bits troughout the world. The Scepter of the Shifting Sands, In Dreams, the Molten Core attunement chain out of my head. I like the world building they did in original WoW but storywise it was lacking other than some exceptions.

TBC - They did worse than Classic for a few reasons: the new storylines they got troughout the zones was much less interesting (and sometimes very incoherent) and they ruined a lot of WC3 characters by giving them unknown motives to become raid bosses. I don't really remember any good story they had.

WotLK - My personal favorite because it had a proper conclusion to the WC3 arc and also managed to do a whole lot of good new stories aswell, with my favorite being the entire build up to Ulduar and meeting the titan keepers. They could have handled Kel'Thuzad and Anub'arak a lot better as they are known Scourge members. The Arthas stuff is still the best they had, and despite appearing rather often troughout the zones it felt like a proper journey that ends with you killing him at the Frozen Throne.

Cata - Didn't like any stories here at all, and worst of all they ruined some characters I once liked (Thrall and Deathwing). The zones didn't have much interesting stories and I really didn't like that they turned Uldum into a parody of Indiana Jones. The ending was absolutely horrible. I guess I can give a bit of credit to how they portrayed Garrosh.

MoP - This one is a bit tougher because the overall writing was actually done well, but I really didn't like some of their decisions of how they portrayed their characters (mostly villains). For example I liked all the build up leading to the Thunder King, yet in-game his presence was severely lacking and he only got his ass beaten despite being so powerful. And I hated that they turned Garrosh into a villain after I liked his more aggresive approach so much in Cata.

WoD - Oh dear God. I'm just glad that most of what they have written is sealed away in another universe. The very moment I heard that we were going to visit another version of Draenor and meet all the old warlords, I just knew that this wouldn't end well. Trough admittedly I like how they portrayed Blackhand and Gul'dan for most parts, but they also heavily ruined Kargath, Kilrogg and even freaking Orgrim Doomhammer... all due to cut content. The zones had some better stories, but nothing special.

Legion - Started off really well where the big bad guy actually seemed to win and even took out 2 kings... and then they started to dissapear for a long ass time for us to visit all of the Broken Isles zones, they return in invasions and all we do is kick their ass all the way trough Argus where we eventually seal Sargeras away. Very dissapointed with how they handled the Burning Legion. They were supposed to be the biggest bad guy in the franchise, and deserved a much better fate. They also managed to make Khadgar super annoying who I actually liked in WoD. The Suramar and some of the class hall stuff (especially DK) was pretty good.

BFA (so far) - Its obviously not over so I'll just rate of what we've seen so far. Overall not impressed with how much they repeat the stuff in MoP, and how much the faction conflict is getting in the way of getting to the good stories. We have this hearth of Azeroth and Azerite stuff tacked in yet this plot is moving very slowly and is rather dull and poor. Jaina has some proper characterisation (though I hate how OP they make her), Sylvanas is done horribly in comparison. Really hope this gets better.

So ranking them all from best to worst:

1. WotLK
2. MoP
3. Classic
4. Legion
5. BFA (so far)
6. Cata
7. TBC
8. WoD

[Jastall]

If we mean by the main plot, that's tough to say as they all have a big flaw. TBC's is completely directionless and villain bats good characters, Wrath has the Lich King being an Inspector Gadget villain, Cata was a disjointed mess of faction war amounting to little and Deathwing doing jack shit + green jesus, Mists had a good start but was bogged down in Nazi Orcs, Legion had a straightforwardly cheesy story with plot elements that could have used more presence (Horde doing nothing) or explanations (how did the Legion grab the Titan souls anyway?), and WoD/BfA are best not spoken of. So on that front I'd say it is a tie between Wrath and Legion who are simple but straightforward and where Blizzard doesn't titanically messes up anything.

If we mean world-building, Mists for sure. The Mantid, Mogu, Lei Shen, Wrathion, the Sha and Yshaarj, redone Zandalari, the Celestials, hell some of the Pandaren content like the Shado-Pan, there's tons of elements that were either introduced or expanded upon that I liked a lot. Pandaria feels the most like a real continent with lived-in history than any other in the game if you ask me.

Overall I'm probably giving the award to Mists which is probably the time I was the most invested in the lore, before WoD shattered my hopes and dreams.

[ro9ue]

Vanilla, Wrath, MoP, Legion would be my top 4. They all told stories in different ways. Vanilla was like story told implicitly through random quests, items and environment design. Wrath had the traditional epic villain of the Lich King so you go through that story like a hero. MoP's delivery of storytelling and the level of detail of the histories of the inhabitants of the new continent seemed thoroughly fleshed out. It might have been my favorite, I just didn't like the flavor / atmosphere of the expansion. Legion had a lot really good technical things going for it. Excellent voice acting, and unique sub stories for all of the artifacts and classes. I think if you had the level of MoP, but with Legion's mood, stories and setting, it would've been near perfect.

But I actually liked Vanilla the most. I think the way the story is told is the best for an MMO. There's a vague lore in the background. But you're a simple adventurer. There's always mystery beyond the hill, a dark tower in the distance. Not everything is explained and it's not a narrow story.

[roboscorcher]

Vanilla had the best outer-world narrative for sure. The story felt real, like I was reading a fantasy book. Now it feels like fanfiction.
WoTLK probably had the best villain, but I don't remember much else about the lore - I guess we got titan lore which was cool.
Legion had one of the best stories with suramar, and the overall setting and reintroduction of old characters was really cool. But it was too packed in my opinion.
BfA had a really really good narrative with Kul'Tiras... but that's about it. It's a shame because BfA had the potential to tell a really good story, but it feels all over the place.
The other expacs are meh. I didn't really like the themes of MoP, but Lei Shen had a cool backstory in chronicles.

Early legion was probably my favourite period of WoW lore, but overall vanilla was probably my favourite.

Good points, especially Legion. Argus has so much going on, I want to be there for more than a patch. We could have explored other worlds with their portal network, delved further into Titan lore, built a base in the Draenei zone. The tomb of Sargeras would have been a good final raid to split the expansion in half.

Oh well. Hopefully the voidlord expansion will have us hopping worlds for a while. Maybe we will reuse Argus' portal network or something. Lots of possibilities.

[Velshin]

It was due to the hype of the burning legion returning, and venturing into the broken world of draenor, and emphasized on the light vs demons aspect, and then finished off with taking down illidan and the sunwell story.

hype doesn't mean good storyline...look at how hyped WoD was... I am simplly asking a question what was our reason for defeating and killing Illidan other than "yay fanbase character from warcraft 3!"

what was our main reason before they retconned and explained in legion expansion later on? what was the reason during TBC expansion era? nothing other than hype no fleshed out storyline nothing at all.

The transition of Kael'thas Sunstrider from being a misguided leader of the blood elves to a fully slave and minion of the burning legion was so bad almost none existed. So yeah tell me what was great about all of that other than hype and being the first expansion? I love the expansion but storyline? it sucks so bad.

[Depakote]

Wrath was when I started so I think stating it as my favorite would be a bit to fanboyish so I choose the expansions of Cataclysm and Mists. Even with the cut content of Cataclysm (rip Abyssal Maw and flying in BC areas of EK and Kalimdor) it was a solid expansion. Same with Mists. Even with how long SoO was out the entirety of the expansion from story development to class design was probably the best they've ever done.

[Velshin]

Wrath was when I started so I think stating it as my favorite would be a bit to fanboyish so I choose the expansions of Cataclysm and Mists. Even with the cut content of Cataclysm (rip Abyssal Maw and flying in BC areas of EK and Kalimdor) it was a solid expansion. Same with Mists. Even with how long SoO was out the entirety of the expansion from story development to class design was probably the best they've ever done.

Again people confusing the topic title.....guys this is about pure storyline its not about raiding or gameplay...


People keep saying "expansion X is my favorite because of certain features here and there"....Hello? this is purely about lore and story? hello?